


Unwanted Knowledge

by stackcats



Category: Doctor Who, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-22
Updated: 2012-04-22
Packaged: 2017-11-04 03:31:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/389263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stackcats/pseuds/stackcats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A stranger comes to Godric's Hollow, searching for someone who has long since left.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unwanted Knowledge

Perhaps one of the strangest encounters of my young life took place a few short months after that fateful summer. It was snowing softly, and I suppose the world was quite beautiful, but my own temper was nothing of the sort. I cannot remember why I was out of the house at such a late hour, but Godric’s Hollow was cast in that heavy darkness that falls when night time becomes inextricably tangled up with early morning.

He was wandering aimlessly – it seemed to me – through the streets. A young man, who appeared quite eccentric to me at the time, although exactly what aspect of him was odd I cannot say. His clothing at first seemed to betray him as a Muggle, but I soon learned he was not so ignorant – indeed, he had knowledge far beyond anything I could aspire to!

It is difficult for two people walking without much purpose at night, having encountered one another, to simply pass by without comment, and the stranger would not have it any other way. He saw me looking, grinned, and gave me a little wave before leaving the sign post he was examining alone and ambling over to my side.

“Hullo!” he said, in a tone of voice which reminded me – as I frequently forgot in those days – that I was still a very young, very naïve man. I took his tone as patronising, and merely raised my eyebrows at him.

If my rudeness offended him, he didn’t show it. Instead, he began to speak with the enthusiasm of a man who not only enjoys the sound of his own voice, but likes nothing more than to ease the pressure on his skull by emptying the contents of his mind onto someone else, thus spreading the burden of his own brilliance.

“I’m the Doctor,” he told me, “not a doctor, the Doctor, before you start showing me your dodgy elbow and your in-growing toe nails – you’d be amazed how many in-growing toe nails I’ve seen that I’ve never once asked to see, and I try to explain I’m not their GP, I’m your actual genius, and I’m not at all interested in other people’s yucky bits. It’s incredible. People just don’t listen. But, sorry, that’s not the point.” He paused to scratch at his unruly mess of hair. “Actually, I’m a bit lost. Just a bit. I’m looking for someone. Do you live here?”

His self-declaration of genius both repelled and enthralled me at once. It reminded me of someone, although his mannerisms were completely alien, and oddly comforting. I nodded, but before I could explain who I was, he was off again.

“Good. Brilliant. That’s good. Listen, I’m in sort of a hurry, so if you could just shut up for a moment…” He paused and grinned. “Nah, only kidding. I’ve got all the time in the world. In a blue box, actually. Big blue box with a light on top, very stylish, although actually I do need to find this person. You know how it is, loose ends to tie up. Should have done this yonks ago, really, but I never got round to it. I kept forgetting his third regeneration, can’t work out why, I just seem to have a blind-spot for it. Have you heard of someone called the Master?”

I shook my head, and tried to speak again, but I didn’t have a chance.

“Stupid question really, he’s obviously not going by any name I’d recognise, this being my home away from home and everything. So, I don’t know what he’s calling himself and… I’m afraid I don’t know what he looks like at the moment. Do you know him?”

“No,” I said, feeling a little rush of triumph at my ability to get a single word in. And then I felt a little bit silly. “Do you… know what he’s like at all?” I suggested. “Perhaps it would help if you described him.”

“He’s a thoroughly evil, murdering, power-hungry megalomaniac whose primary goal is to take over this planet and then the universe, and he’d quite like to do it with a side-order of seeing me die a very painful death.”

A thousand clichés happened to me at once. My blood ran cold, and the hairs on my neck stood up on end. The stranger – the Doctor – looked directly at me, and it was only then that I realised he had not once looked me in the eye up until that point. When I looked into his eyes, I was able to see straight through him, although what it was I saw I was not able to interpret.

“You’re not a Wizard,” I said.

He shook his head. “No, I’m not.”

“Or a Muggle.”

“Nope.”

“Or a-”

“I am nothing you have a word for,” he said. He was still looking intently at me, and I am certain I felt him rustling in my head, walking amongst my thoughts, although he was remarkably subtle about it. “And neither was he.”

I felt very small, even smaller than I had been feeling in recent months, and a terrible sickness gripped my stomach. Everything I had wanted, everything I had believed, all the lies I told myself to cover up a truth that was itself a horrifying lie… He saw it all, though whether in my mind or in my face I do not know.

He no longer seemed amusing or eccentric to me. His eyes were very hard, and his lips became a thin, cold line. I wanted to look at anything else, but I could not turn my gaze away from him. He was alien and ugly and frightening.

“I’m sorry,” he said. I realised he was gripping my arm, far too tightly. “I’m so sorry.”

It would have been easy for me to hate the Doctor as I could not hate the man I had lost and he was hunting. He ambled into my life and delivered another, unwanted blow just as I was beginning to remember who I was and that I could do good with my life. I should have hated him, and over the years I have tried. But I suspect there is no one in the universe who truly hates the Doctor, no one who is immune to his empathy and his mystery. Not even him.

The Doctor finally lowered his gaze, and turned away from me.

“He’s gone, isn’t he? I won’t find him here.”

“No.”

“I’m too late. Far too late. Always too… too late.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, echoing his words. “I could tell you where to look-”

“Doesn’t matter. Can’t do anything about it now, events are in motion, out of my hands and into yours. You’ll see him again.” He stuffed his hands into his coat pockets, puffed dragon-breath into the frosty night air. “Good luck, Albus. And… if it counts for anything… I understand. I really do.”

I watched him walk away, and wondered how he knew my name.


End file.
